THE wildlife had to take a back seat in the Newnes forest over the Easter break when hordes of Venturer Scouts went bush for their annual Dragonskin competition.
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Dragonskin is a highlight of the Venturer calendar with teams from troops all over New South Wales coming together to compete against each other in a series of tests well away from civilised comforts.
State Forests had reserved a section of the Newnes plantation for the Scouts.
It was a major logistical operation just in getting the Scouts and their adult team leaders to the forest on Good Friday.
A specially chartered train brought around 1000 teenagers, both boys and girls, to Lithgow station,
With the party were several hundred leaders and support staff.
It was quite a spectacle of massed movement.
From the interchange the visitors marched to the Lithgow Buslines depot in Donald Street for a convoy to the camp site.
Over the weekend Dragonskin was blessed with clear, sunny daytime conditions but the nights, with temperatures dropping well into single figures, would have been an education for education to anyone not familiar with mid autumn in the mountains.
Yesterday the Scouts returned to Lithgow and began the search for something to eat in the CBD before joining the early afternoon train for Sydney.
They were not quite as exuberant as when they arrived three days earlier.
It is not the first time Dragonskin has been contested in the Lithgow and Oberon forestry areas.